We talk about literacies of various sorts but the enterprise begs the question: what counts as language? Geoffrey Pullum doesn'tt really tell us - though it has something to do with "the communication of simple ideas between people." But he's clear about things that are not languages. Music. Food. Sounds made by Orcas. " The claim that information transmission was demonstrated in the music is patently ridiculous," he writes. I think the definition of language as 'information transmission' is too narrow, and this mostly because I think that cognition is not information processing. But I will agree that journalists go over the side when talking about animals speaking human language. Image: LiveScience.
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